Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Does Democracy Die a Fitful Death in India?

  23 October 2017

  by Zahoor Ahmad Wani
  Now fear no more shall bridle speech; Uncurbed, the common tongue shall prate of freedom; For the yoke of state lies are broken on the bloody beach —Aeschylus, The Persians 584-94
  The key question this brief article addresses is: can citizens enjoy the freedoms of demons-tration, assembly, and open public discussions about everything? Democracy, properly under-stood, is the context in which citizens freely engage in a process of broad-based discourse, debate, (…)

• Have Land Reforms Vanished from the Government Policy in India?

  23 October 2017, by Bharat Dogra

  Despite the widely acknowledged fact that land reforms constitute one of the most important means of reducing poverty and improving food security of the weakest sections, it has been well known for a few years now that the Government of India is no longer keen to accord any important place to land reforms in its policies. Still during the ten years of the UPA Government ending in 2014, there used to be an occasional glimmer of hope from time to time that perhaps with some strong promptings (…)

• Peking’s Shadow Over NEFA • President’s Unique Initiative

  23 October 2017, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  Fiftyfive years ago in this week itself the Chinese aggression of India rocked the country. It formally happened on October 20 but the preparations for it were going on for quite sometime and Chinese intrusion into Indian territory had taken place since the beginning of September 1962. To mark the anniversary we reproduce here N.C.’s ‘New Delhi Skyline’ in the Mainstream issue of October 20, 1962 (the October 20 issue did not carry the news of the formal aggression as (…)

• JP: Some Reflections

  23 October 2017

  On the occasion of Jayaprakash Narayan’s 115th birth anniversary on October 11, 2017 we are carrying the following piece written by N.C. under the pseudonym ‘Analyst’ after JP passed away on October 8, 1979.
  by Analyst
  Jayaprakash Narayan has carried with him fulsome tributes from all political circles—his adherents and admirers, his adversaries and detractors. A life of ups and downs of heroic times and despairing moments. Living beyond the Psalmist’s assigned span, JP had not only (…)

• How would the Charlatan BHU VC going on leave Help the Institution?

  23 October 2017, by Sandeep Pandey

  The controversial Vice-Chancellor of Banaras Hindu University, Professor Girish Chandra Tripathi, has now gone on leave indefinitely. It turns out that he was not only a disaster for the university but was also eroding the credibility of the reputed Indian Institute of Technology on the campus as its Chairperson, Board of Governors. The Minister for External Affairs, Sushma Swaraj, mentioned the IITs among India’s achievements in her United Nations General Assembly speech but this VC could (…)

• Renu Chakravartty: Some Recollections

  23 October 2017, by Hiren Mukerjee

  October 21 this year marks the birth centenary of Renu Chakravartty, noted Communist parliamentarian who passed only on April 16, 1994. Remembering her, we are reproducing the following article by Hiren Mukerjee that appeared in Mainstream (April 23, 1994) after her death. Prof Mukerjee and Renu Chakravartty were Deputy Leaders of the Communist Group in the Lok Sabha when A.K. Gopalan was the Leader of the united CP in Parliament.
  It is one of the torments of longevity that near and dear (…)

• Renu Chakravartty: A Profile / Two Letters

  23 October 2017

  Renu Chakravartty was born on October 21, 1917 at Calcutta to Sadhan Chandra Roy and Brahma Kumari Roy. Her parents were well-known Brahmos, her grandparents—Prakash Chandra Roy and Aghorekamini Devi—having been pioneers of the Brahmo Samaj movement in Patna (Bihar). Sadhan Chandra was an engineer and the elder brother of Dr Bidhan Chandra Roy, the renowned medical practitioner who became the second Chief Minister of West Bengal (in February 1948) after independence.
  She passed out of (…)

• Nazism and the American Automobile Giant

  23 October 2017, by Arup Kumar Sen

  Henry Ford of the Ford Motor Company (FMC) in America made a revolution in the world of automobiles by manufacturing the Model-T car, a low-price “people’s car”, and innovating assembly line technology, a technology of mass production. These innovations made Henry Ford a household name in America. He is described as a hero in the textbooks written for American schoolchildren. But, there is a dark side of the success story of Ford.
  Henry Ford was a committed anti-Semitic. By the beginning (…)

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  BJP on a Sticky Wicket

  14 October 2017, by SC

  EDITORIAL
  Jay Shah, the son of the second most important person in the country, BJP President Amit Shah, is in the spotlight at present.
  A report in The Wire website has pointed out that the turnover of Temple Enterprise Private Limited, owned by Jay Shah, grew from Rs 50,000 in March 2015 to Rs 80.5 crores in 2015-16; in the same year it got access to an unsecured loan of Rs 50.78 crores from the financial services firm, KIFS.
  Incidentally, when the report questioned the sharp rise in (…)

• Indian Muslims on Trial Again

  14 October 2017, by Shamsul Islam

  According to press reports, Yoga guru and Patanjali founder Ramdev, while participating in a TV show (September 30, 2017), said cow urine should be acceptable to Muslims too as something used for treatment. He went to the extent of claiming: “It is written in the Quran that cow urine can be used for treatment.”
  Without going into the debate whether Ramdev was honest in his reference to the Quran or not, one thing is sure. This Hindutva flag-post, Ramdev, a billionaire baba, believes that (…)